I work in the services industries, and as such am self-employed. Not having a single direct employer means that those I serve directly pay me. So it’s in everyone’s interest for me to provide the very best service possible by providing what was requested, or more, and establishing and maintaining accurate expectations.
My “employer” doesn’t pay my check, my clients do. As such, it’s worthwhile to keep them happy. If I don’t then someone else will. Happy clients are those who receive excellent service, at a fair and reasonable price, and will return. When hiccups come along, as they occasionally do, if addressed with personal attention, accurate and timely communication, and keeping the client in the loop, most are happy to adjust their expectations. Especially if they are given good and concise explanations; most people are reasonable.
It’s the basis of earning a good reputation. Successful entrepreneurs know this and guard their reputations with great gusto. Once lost, it’s nigh impossible to restore. I was taught that ethic since childhood and have fallen down on it, too. Experience can be a severe taskmaster; however, the experience cemented in me the professional ethic of under-promising and over-delivering. Going that extra mile earns income and, more importantly, good reputation points.
I’ve said for some time now, except for exterior (family/friends), that the two most important things we personally have are our time and our integrity; one must be judicious with the investment of the former and ferociously protective of the latter.
However, the professional ethic of service begins to erode when a middleman (an employer) is involved. It creates another layer of unaccountability in the mix. Even worse, when we see it in a virtual monopoly consumer-employer-service worker scenario, the result is that there’s little regard for customer satisfaction.
That being said, I acknowledge that it’s unreasonable for me to hold the same expectation of satisfaction with a monopolistic mega-corporation’s services. Worse yet, one affiliated with the government. I’m talking here about the US Postal Service.
I live at the end of a very short, dead-end street with about nine homes packed in. About 125 feet from my house is a multi-box mail pedestal, where our whole block goes to retrieve and post our mail. It was ostensibly a good idea because it encouraged neighbors to mingle and provided more facility for the mail carrier delivery and pickup.
No mail has been delivered to my mailbox in over a week, which is not unusual except for the lapse in junk mail. I had been hoping the junk mailers had given up.
No such luck.
I would’ve just accepted it, but I was alerted to something being wrong. Last Tuesday, six days ago, I posted a prepaid package in our pedestal drop box, which included a tracking number. It was supposed to be a three-day delivery, yet all week long, I checked the tracking, and it indicated it hadn’t been picked up yet.
After waiting over the weekend, I checked again to see it still had not been picked up on Monday (where it was said the expected delivery was the prior Thursday). I called my local post office and explained my situation. The gentleman I spoke with was very nice and polite and asked me to hold on for a few minutes. He came back several minutes later and informed me that he had spoken with the carrier, who informed him that someone had tampered with the master lock on the pedestal, which gives access simultaneously to everyone’s box and the posted items and could not get into it.
I asked about the package I had posted, alerting me to this situation. Then I also thought that I had paid a bill and posted it in the same box, but my check still had not been cleared. He told me they’d come and pick it up today by going in the “back way,” whatever that is.
“How do I get my mail, then?” I asked.
“You’ll have to come to the post office, where we’re holding your mail,” he answered.
“So what happens next?”
He said, “We’ve put in an order to have the pedestal box lock repaired.”
“How long will that take?”
“About two months.” The wheels of bureaucracy turn at a snail’s pace.
I was incredulous and said, “You mean I’m going to have to drive 10 miles round trip to get my mail for the next two months?”
“Yes, sir.”
I understand the need for procedures and the attitude that an employee thinks his employer pays his wages, not the consumer. Their jobs are protected by being a Federal employee (they’re not, but are close first cousins). I don’t like it, but I understand it.
I thought, “Neither rain, nor snow, nor sleet, nor hail …” Evidently, vandalism is not covered under that mantra.
And I think, what would I have done? What I would do would be bundle up the mail for each of the nine homes on the street and attach a note explaining the situation to each postal customer, and stick it between their storm door and front door. Let them know the situation. Now, I’m sure there’s some legal prohibition to doing such a logical, kind and neighborly thing for a “federal” employee.
So here I sit with 17 cents in my checking account, with several hundred dollars worth of bills coming due in the next few days; I’m expecting a couple of checks to cover those bills for the excellent service I’ve rendered in my service business.
Sure, it’s an inconvenience to take half an hour to get my mail and drive ten miles instead of walking 250 feet round trip. I shake my head, as sadly, I’ve come to expect it. And accept it because I know I can’t do anything about it. And no one seems to be in any particular rush to rectify it.
It’s bad enough that my already low opinion of our postal service has been taken down several more notches. What makes me angry, though, is that because items I’ve posted have been delayed, they directly impact my integrity and potentially my credit score, which requires me to do damage control with the intended recipients. To those potentially affected, the fact that the carrier cannot get into my mailbox when I can, sounds like an extremely flimsy excuse.
Makes me wonder why it’s called a service. Another pet peeve, get-off-my-lawn-related topic is fast food restaurants, where I have repeatedly been made to feel like I’m there solely for the employee’s convenience. Don’t get me started…can I get an amen?